The County's Landfills Are Full. A $1.5B Solution Is Divisive

On its face it sounds promising: a $1.5 billion garbage incinerator that could power 70,000 homes, pollute less than the incinerators of old did, and, reportedly, not smell. Promising enough that Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava suggested it as the best path forward for the county, whose two landfills were almost at capacity; the incinerator it formerly used had been wrecked in a 2023 fire. But as Nicolás Rivero writes for the Washington Post, "nobody wants it." Not those who lived near the old incinerator and found the smell, the flies, and the noise unbearable; not environmentalists; and not the Trumps, whose Trump National Doral golf course sits nearby.

Something needs to happen. The county's trash chief resigned after the fire and warned the county would soon need to put all real estate development on ice because there would be nowhere for the trash to go (the incinerator handled about half the 2 million tons collected annually). In Rivero's telling, incinerators are gaining popularity in Europe, China, and Southeast Asia, thanks in part to leaps in technology that have made them less polluting. He sees Miami-Dade County as a litmus test for whether they could catch on here, too. It doesn't look promising. As of late January, Levine Cava is no longer backing the plan, citing the threat of legal challenges as one factor.

The Miami-Herald reports she says the county should continue to truck its garbage out of the county and possibly build a new landfill somewhere in central Florida, which she expects could be done in a decade for a third of the price of the incinerator. The annual operation costs would be 10 times as much, however, at roughly $163 million versus $15 million for the incinerator. The Herald notes her about-face came after strong pressure from Eric Trump. County commissioners are set to decide Feb. 19. In the meantime, Rivero's full piece is absolutely worth a read: It delves into why incinerators may be better for the planet than landfills, why some say the county isn't attacking the root issue, and why it generates so much more trash per resident than the rest of America. (Read it here.)